THE EXETER ROAD 89 



had anything to urge against his being taken to Tyburn 

 in an open cart. Said he, pointing to the indefatigable 

 Norton, "Ask him how he Hves ! " To which question, 

 meant to be insulting, the indefatigable Norton replied 

 in these meaning words — " I live in Wych Street, and 

 sometimes I take a thief." 



But where is the Exeter Fly vm Salisbury all this time ? 

 Why, the coachman has recovered his reins and his senses, 

 and the Fly has resumed its flight, and while its passengers 

 are busily discussing footpads from a personal experience, 

 it passes, about a furlong further down the road, a noted 

 house of entertainment at which footpads used to 

 congregate. This was the celebrated Half-way House^ 

 an inn midway between Knightsbridge and Kensington, 

 which stood on the present site of the Prince of Wales' 

 Gate, Hyde Park, and which was pulled down in the 

 autumn of 1846. Every highwayman of the period had 

 drunk within its doors, a recollection of which fact did not 

 incline the driver of the Exeter Fly to try the quality of 

 its beer. Meanwhile all the way through Kensington 

 (just outside which charming village the Fly passes two 

 blue nosed sportsmen, out snipe shooting) the passengers 

 with much exciternent and heat review the recent adven- 

 ture. A scene from Smollett slips in so well here that I 

 cannot refrain, a scene which I grieve to have to tone 

 for ears polite. 



" When," writes Roderick Random (after a similar 

 adventure), " when I had taken my seat, Miss Snapper, 

 who from the coach had seen everything that had 

 happened, made me a compliment on my behaviour ; 

 and said she was glad to see me returned without having 

 received any injury ; her mother, too, owned herself 

 obliged to my resolution ; and the lawyer told me I was 

 entitled by Act of Parliament to a reward of forty 

 pounds for having apprehended a highwayman. The 

 soldier observed with a countenance in which impudence 

 and shame struggling produced some disorder, that if I 

 had not been in such a hurry to get out of the 



